Drugs are effective in treating a wide range of diseases and medical conditions. They are designed to be consumed according to a defined protocol, which includes dosing and timing. Demand for prescription drugs is growing at a rate that exceeds the capacity and numbers of licensed pharmacists. Currently more than 200 million prescriptions are filled in the US alone every week. The number of prescriptions filled between 2000 and 2005 increased roughly by 41%, while the number of retail pharmacists increased roughly by 4.5%.
However, there are a few major problems associated with prescribed and non prescribed drugs, which create a safety risk or reduced efficacy:                1. Drug-drug interactions which occur when actually consuming the drugs        2. Medication errors made by physicians        3. Non compliance and non-adherence by patients        4. Vending errors by pharmacists        5. Drug counterfeit        
Errors can be made in any stage of the drug cascade: manufacturing, prescribing, dispensing and consumption. They can occur at the manufacturing site, in hospitals, pharmacies, community clinics and at home. Two in-patient studies, one in adults and one in pediatrics, have found that about half of medication errors occur at the stage of drug ordering, and direct observation studies have indicated that many errors also occur at the administration stage.
The purpose of the invention described herein is to assist patients and people who consume medications to considerably reduce the risk associated with these factors.
1. Drug-Drug Interactions:
All drugs affect multiple organs and many systems, and have different mechanisms of absorption, distribution metabolism and elimination. However, many, if not most, individuals take more than one drug at a time. Once a drug is consumed, it may alter one or more of the mechanism of action of another drug causing a reduction of efficacy or a toxic effect.
While clinicians are in general familiar with the concept of cross activities of drugs, which are mentioned in the summary of product characteristics (SmPC) and prescribing information (PI), in many cases they are unaware of specific potential interactions while prescribing a drug for one of the following reasons: The clinician is prescribing the drug only in rare cases, the drug is new on the market, the patient did not disclose all drugs he/she is taking (or was not asked about them), personal habits are not disclosed (dietary, alcohol, smoking, etc.) or the clinician or the pharmacist is not familiar with many of the possible combinations of drug interactions
2. Medication Errors
Medication errors are errors in the processes of ordering, transcribing, dispensing, administering, or monitoring drugs, irrespective of the outcome (i.e. injury to the patient).
3. Non-compliance and Non-adherence
Non-compliance and non-adherence errors are made by the patient. The principal types of non-compliance errors are: missing a dose, incorrect drug, incorrect frequency of administration, or completely stop taking the drug
4. Vending Errors
This type of errors occurs when drugs are sold by a pharmacist to the patient. Typically, these errors occur due to similar names or similar packages of drugs. A high work load on pharmacists also contributes to the error rate.
5. Drug Counterfeit
This is a growing issue where a look-alike drug, which may contain an inert or a different material, is sold on the market as if it were the original drug. The danger here is that the patient will not get the benefits of the proper drug, at all.